Her phone continued to chime, but Emma ignored it as shewatched him slide into the back seat. The door closed and the Suburban eased into traffic, disappearing as it turned down Fifth.
When had he decided to leave? Was Davina Sundar going with him? How could he not know when he was coming back?
She should have stopped him, told him not to go, not to leave her, at least get some clarity. Something. But she hadn’t said anything at all.
She felt empty as she walked in her house, up the stairs to her room. As the sun set, she looked around the cold and empty yard and realized she already missed him. He left two minutes ago, and she missed knowing he was there. Even if they didn’t speak for a couple days, just knowing he was inside his home a few steps away, it was the constant she needed. Now it was gone.
CHAPTER 27
March in New York was gray. Clouds took up permanent residence above while the last remnants of snow became a filthy, icy mess lining the sidewalks below. The trees in the park were empty, the colors of the buildings muted. It was a predictable pattern: after the best parts of winter were over, the city hibernated until spring.
At least, that’s how it usually felt. Like you were going through the motions and then suddenly flowers were blooming and the sky was blue and you wondered how it had happened so quickly. Like the entire past month hadn’t happened at all. But Emma felt acutely aware of it. Each day, each hour passed like there was a metronome inside her body. She felt it in her bones.
There was more than enough to keep her busy. She helped Nadine prepare for midterms. Nadine helped her prepare for her Met interview. There was a thesis to finish, Sunday dinner to plan, and Margo’s baby on the way. But it still always came back to that metronome, back and forth, keeping a steady count of every second.
He had been gone seventeen days.
It wasn’t that she was counting, yet it was impossible to ignore his absence. But why? He had spent time away from them before. For the past three years he had bounced back and forth between New York and LA, but this felt different. When they had their first Sunday dinner after he left, she looked at his empty seat and remembered that he had been gone exactly a week. And a few days later, when she stopped by the Met to take one last tour through their latest exhibit before her interview, she knew that it had been ten days. And then every night after, as she looked out her windows to the dark empty ones across the lawn, she would add one more to the tally.
Emma sat in the armchair by her bedroom window with a book in her lap. Her gaze drifted to those darkened windows now and she scowled. It was so selfish of him, leaving in the middle of March for sunshine and parties and beaches, while she was stuck dodging piles of gray snow and midterms and views of his abandoned house. The least he could have done was leave in the summer, when more of her friends would be back from abroad—if they decided to return. Or when she would have the internship to distract her, if she got it…
She slammed the book shut in her lap, suddenly angry. He could have at least waited until the leaves were back on the trees so they would have blocked her view! Of course he had to go now when she needed him most. All because of what? A little argument?
But after a few moments, the anger fizzled out as quickly as it had ignited. As much as she wanted to believe that she factored into his decision, she also realized that this was just the same selfish behavior he was always criticizing her for. This wasn’t about her. He had a long list of responsibilities: his company, his friends, even Davina… and there at the bottom of the list was Emma. Silly, spoiled Emma.
Maybe that was the nagging feeling that wouldn’t let her go. That while he had firmly planted Emma at the bottom of his list of people, she’d realized that he was at the top of hers. Amid all the friends and family, he really was her best friend. And as much as she wanted to say it was despite his constant chiding and correcting, she had to admit that it was because of it. He was never trying to be mean, he just wanted her to be ready for the world beyond 83rd Street. And just as she was beginning to finally understand what that even meant, he was gone.
“Darling!” her father called out from downstairs. “Nadine’s here.”
“Coming,” she called back. But she didn’t move for a long moment.
When she finally made it downstairs, she found Nadine seated at the island in what had become her usual spot, a notebook already open in front of her.
“I think I need to go back to the Cloisters for my Western Art paper,” she said as soon as Emma appeared. Her face looked panicked. “I didn’t take any notes on the unicorn tapestries, and I think that’s going to be important. Do you think it’s going to be important?”
“We’ve already gone to the Cloisters a dozen times,” Emma said. “You’ll do fine.”
“But what if—”
“Just go online and watch one of the tours they’ve uploaded. That’s how I passed almost all of History of Western Art last year.”
“Work smarter, not harder,” Mr. Woodhouse interjected proudly from where he sat at the kitchen table reading theTimes.
Nadine stared up at her in awe. “You’re going to do so well on Friday.”
Emma winced just thinking about the interview. “I hope so. I’m still nervous that one of the curators might recognize my name.”
“Work smarter, not harder,” Mr. Woodhouse recited again, raising an eyebrow at her.
She rolled her eyes, picking a grape off the bunch in the center of the island and popping it in her mouth. “I think Knightley would take issue with that mantra.”
“I think Knightley needs to remember it sometimes,” Mr. Woodhouse murmured, already back to reading his newspaper.
“Have you heard from him?” Nadine asked. It was startling how her face lit up as soon as his name was mentioned. Emma ignored it.
“I don’t know; I haven’t checked my texts,” she said. It was a lie, of course. She had checked her phone at least a dozen times since she wrote to him yesterday, prodding him with inane questions, like if she could go in and steal his ice cream while he was gone. He hadn’t replied.
“Is he living in his house in Malibu, or did he find something closer to his office?”
